The director of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History will leave at the end of next month to start up a new museum in Phoenix. His departure comes several months before the Oakland facility is set to open a giant exhibition hall for its signature dinosaur fossil collection.

Bill DeWalt, who has led the museum since 2001, announced today that he is leaving to become president and director of an international musical instrument museum in the city. He will be able to help build the museum from the bottom up and return to his scientific roots in anthropology, he said in a statement.

The Carnegie Natural History Museum boasts the third largest collection of dinosaur fossils in the world, many of them purchased by Andrew Carnegie himself. Mr. DeWalt helped lead the planning and fund-raising for a new $36 million exhibition hall for the fossils -- and accompanying education wing -- called "Dinosaurs in Their World," which is set to open this fall.

Mr. DeWalt is a former director of the Center for Latin American Studies and distinguished service professor of public and international affairs at the University of Pittsburgh.

More details in tomorrow's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.